Hebrews 5.9
October 13th 2013
Welcome welcome.
We are in Hebrews 5 today at verse 7.
But before getting into it let’s listen to the Word of God set to human music as a means to facilitate memorization and contemplation on some of the more poignant passages of the New Testament.
Afterward we invite you to sit quietly and to reflect upon your relationship with the Lord, on your walk, on your worries, and on the things you wonder about.
Then we’ll come back and get into John chapter four.
Alright. Last week we talked about priests and the fact that because a major part of their job description was offering up oblations (or gifts) and blood sacrifices there are no more “priestly offices” named in the New Testament church – since Christ offered up His own life (as a gift) and His own shed blood once and for all.
We also talked about Melchizedek, a quixotic biblical character who, curiously, the Bible says even Jesus Christ is “after the order of.”
Finally we have talked at length about what a great priest Jesus is (after the order of this quixotic Melchezedek) and what a Great High Priest He is (after the similitude of Aaron).
The passages we read pointed out that the Great High priests (from Aaron’s human line) could relate to the sins and trials of the people because they too were human and could therefore resonate to the human experience, offering up for the sins not only of the people but also for themselves.
This brought us to Hebrews 5:7-8 where the parallel is drawn to Christ, our Great High Priest, who not only has once and for all entered into the Holy of Holies on High but too, fully understands our human plight and we left off here.
We asked how does He understand our plight? How deeply does being human resonate with our King.
Well, verses 7-8 give us some idea and insight, saying of Jesus:
Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
I wanted to progress past these verses and to take them in through the third verse of chapter 6 but it was not possible – there is just too much here to consider. So, back to verse seven and eight which we touched on last week, which say, speaking of Jesus:
7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
Though a Son (capital S) of God, though He sustained this exalted rank while on earth He learned experientially, expressed through “strong crying and tears” – (or through suffering) – obedience.
We made some conjecture last week about how some scholars believe the writer of Hebrews is specifically describing Jesus time in the Garden of Gethsemane and/or on the cross but how also this could have also described Jesus childhood experiences, or His teen years, or years as a young adult, where He learned to do the Father’s will rather than His own – and how painful this education can be.
What is interesting to me and (ever so applicable to our purposes today is scripture is clear that every Christian will experience the same – if willing.
It only stands to reason that with an author and finisher of our faith and profession having lived a life like this that those who follow Him would too.
We hear a lot about Him taking our pain, and sin and bearing the load but justification is only one element of the walk. There is another – sanctification – which is greatly misunderstood in my opinion.
We call our faith “Christ”ianity because our King – Jesus Christ – did it first, perfectly, modeling for us what it means to be a Christian. How it looks to live the Christian life.
Once we have received Him, and all that this entails, and too (and also!) have become “Sons” with a capital “S” and “Daughters” with a capital “D” we will learn obedience by and through the things we suffer.
“learning obedience (to the King) by the things which we suffer (in our flesh) . . . for Him.”
What does this look like, what does this even mean? The interpretations of this concept range from the sublime to the foolish.
Our youngest daughter attends a Nazarite college in Southern California. Among the study body (as promoted by the faculty) is a tremendous drive or push or emphasis on what they call “holiness.”
My daughter has a tendency to get caught up in the fever.
One example of experimenting with holiness is something they are calling (interestingly enough) “The Burning Heart” experience where the kids “covenant” to pray for at least an hour a day for 21 days straight.
I won’t even try and address my distain for such appeals but admit that for the college aged seeker God will use some of this stuff to their spiritual good.
But the point is I had a conversation with Delaney about what human holiness looks like to God.
“Is it holiness to commit murder?” I asked her?
“No.”
“To rape or torture?”
“No,” she replied.
“So are you holy because you have not murdered or raped or tortured?”
She pondered a minute. “No . . . not yet.”
“Why?”
She thought again and I interrupted.
“While you think on that let me ask you this? Are you ever mean to people?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Every gossip about anyone?
“Yes.”
“hate anyone, call them mean names?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that the Spirit that moves us to do those things is the same spirit that moves us to murder and rape and torture?”
“I never thought of it that way,” she replied.
This is the problem with human attempts at holiness What I mean is trying to perfect the flesh through systems, and templates, and philosophies – no matter how advanced they appear in helping us overcome the flesh, it’s still the flesh that’s in charge.
It is commendable to overcome our flesh through the spirit – but that comes about through a very different means than overcoming our flesh by and through fleshly regimentation.
Trying to morally reform ourselves through outward applications is like a farmer taking a giant hog out of the slop, washing her down, taking it to best plastic surgeon in Beverly Hill’s where he gives the hog a human face, attaching a wig to its head, and putting it in a dress.
Then after years of training it to walk around upright and in high heels somehow believing the hog has become a woman.
No matter what we do the hog is still a hog.
So what are the demands placed on people who lay claim to Jesus as their King and perhaps far more importantly, what is the process or method in arriving at a place where Christians can say that the demands are being met?
Reading through the entirety of the New Testament the demands can appear rather overwhelming.
Just consider the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew five, six and seven? How about just nine or ten verses from chapter five, eh? Listen to how Jesus describes those who follow Him.
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
These are amazing descriptions from the Lord of what the happy Christian life looks like. Really?
But again, HOW do believers attained or accomplish such attributes and attitudes? Is it even possible?
What about First Corinthians 13? We are ALL very well aware (as followers of the King) that we are commanded to love as God loves. So let’s just take four short verses that describe what it looks like to love as God loves:
1st Corinthians 13:4 “Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, love is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
“Okay, okay, okay!” you might be saying or screaming from inside your head, “we’ve read the words! We’ve heard them preached, and we know what we ought to do! We get the demands! But HOW DO WE DO IT? What is the process or method in arriving at the place in our lives where these relentless demands are being met?
(beat)
How did Jesus arrive?
How did He meet the demands while in the days of His flesh?
(verse 7-8)
(beat)
“. . . In the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience (which means “to Love God and Man more than self) . . . by the things which he suffered.
It’s an interesting description, I think – that He (listen ‘and We’) “learn obedience by the things we . . . suffer.”
In the King James we frequently read the word “suffer” and it often means to let something happen – to allow it to occur.
For example when Jesus said “suffer the little children to come unto me,” the Greek word for suffer is “AF-EE-AMI” which means, “let them, allow them,” to come unto me.
This is not the meaning of suffer in Hebrews 5.
When it says that Jesus, in the days of His flesh, though “a Son” (of God) learned obedience by the things He suffered – that Greek word is “Paskoh” and it means “learning something through experience most frequently associated with pain.”
We could read Hebrews 5:8 then as:
He learned obedience by “painful experiences” which He endured.
The key to understanding this “suffering” as believers is to understand what it is that is actually “in pain.”
Christians all over the world have tended to associate their suffering with the physical – going hungry, not having enough money, some even go so far as to employ self-flaggelation and even crucifixion as a means to suffer like Jesus.
(Kelli and Alan Mexico crown)
But what is the part of a Christian that suffers most (in my opinion) You ready?
The human ego – centered in our flesh. Our pride. The natural self-focus we all possess from birth. The me me me of our walk walk walk.
This is what “experiences the suffering” in our walk as true Christians.
See, when it comes to physical suffering and discomforts I would suggest that this type of suffering is sort-of universal among all people. The “have nots” have always been frustrated in the presence of the haves.
Believers (and not) all have to work jobs.
Believers (and not) all have bills, sick kids, divorce, and chaos, and temporal pains.
But it’s the almost intolerable suffering of humbly allowing our will and ways to die and be replaced by His will and ways that creates the truest expression of Christian pain.
It’s holding our tongue when we know our tongue can destroy another person who is attacking us . . . or when we have the juiciest piece of gossip imaginable but choose to not pass it along.
It’s holding back our fists when Mr. loudmouth could certainly benefit by a mouthful of it.
It’s forgiving those who have despitefully used and abused us – often (and even) in the name of God Himself! It’s forgiving and loving those who are absolutely wrong – even evil.
That’s suffering. That’s painful.
It’s dying to the desire to condemn, to take advantage, to feed the flesh instead of the spirit.
Describing Christ (in Philippians 2:8) Paul gives us a really good picture of what this looks like, saying:
“And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, (which can truly be a painful experience to our flesh) and became obedient unto death (which was certainly a painful experience), even the death of the cross (which was an absolutely excruciating experience).”
Notice that finding himself in fashion as a man there is a tacit inference of pride being present?
It’s our nature.
We are vain, and proud, and self-focused naturally. So finding himself fashioned as a man and with propensities toward pride He chose to humble Himself (resisting the natural pride in Man) and became obedient to death . . . even the death of the cross.
I would suggest to you that the three years Jesus was in mortal ministry presents us with “a picture” of Christian suffering. I say this because, like us in the early days of our Christian walk, the suffering of the Lord in the first days of His ministry appears to have been manageable.
He was attending parties, turning water into wine, having dinner with folks, engaged in discussions with Pharisees and teaching the twelve to follow Him.
Disciples pursued after Him and His miracles seemed to accelerate in quantity, scope and degree of apparent difficulty.
But as the Lord continued, teaching greater and greater things with deeper meaning, people began to abandon Him.
In John chapter 6, Jesus starts to deliver “hard sayings.”
In verses 54 and 55 Jesus says:
John 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
John 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Ten verses later we read:
“And from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.”
In other words as His miracles and depth of His teachings increased so did the rejection and poor treatment.
In the end one of His own betrays Him, He find’s Himself on His face in the garden of Gethsemane, and He ultimately turned Himself over entirely into the hands of the temple guards.
It is my opinion that that the physical torments Jesus humbly endured are pictures of the spiritual torments we choose to humbly endure in our walk today.
Just as Jesus could have wiped the men the men who slapped and beat Him and crowned his head with thorns from off the face of the earth, we too could retaliate to midtreatment and injustice by our flesh but choose instead to turn the other cheek, to forgive, and too bear the burden of their injustices by return evil with good.
And just as Jesus mistreatment accelerated to the point He was taken and suffered death God allows those of us who follow after Him trials and pains that increase (and increase, and increase in pain and difficulty) . . . until we ultimately and humbly submit our will to Him, crying:
“Jesus, into your hands I commend this situation.”
And just as He rose from the grave to “new life” so are we, having been buried with Christ, raised by Him (over and over and over again) to a new, more powerful Christian walk.
Contrary to what many Christians the world over tend to dream about, we are not called to die on a literal cross in this day and age, but we are told to “take up our cross” daily.
It’s a metonymical cross – meaning the literal cross is a symbol for a figurative type of suffering God has us endure.
With that imagery in mind, we can comprehend that the biblical instructions to “die daily,” “to be crucified with Christ,” to be “buried with Christ,” and to then be “risen with Christ” all point to humbly and painfully submitting to “the will of the Holy Spirit within” and not responding to trials by the flesh from without.
This approach makes all the difference in our ability to actually achieve the demands of passages like Matthew 5 and first Corinthians 13.
Use the flesh to control the flesh and the results are still . . . of the flesh.
Humbly submit the flesh to the spirit and the results are Christian . . . and eternal.
Verse nine continues speaking of Christ and says:
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.
We noted last week that this passage is not speaking of the spiritual construction of Jesus “being made perfect” nor that He grew incrementally into His deity.
Scripture says plainly that “the fullness of God was not give to Him incrementally.”
The Greek word here for being made perfect is “teleothesis” and because it is presented in the first aorist passive participle of “teleioô,” we could think of it as meaning He completed “the process of training.”
Now, due to the fact that many of us were formerly LDS this little Greek detail can be really hard to hear because it sounds very Mormon – conveying the LDS idea that Jesus had to come to earth to get a body so that He could progress in his attainment of becoming a God.
But again, we have to remember – there are passages that speak of His deity, of Him “who came from above” (and being the only one to come from above) and there are passages that speaking of His humanity, including this one where He (in His flesh) learned obedience through the things He suffered.
The writer appears to be returning to His earlier comparisons of Jesus to the Great High Priest and saying that “in” and “through” and “by” the things He suffered that He became a complete Savior–a Savior who was fitted in all respects (including empathy gained by becoming one of us) to redeem human kind.
Then by and through this subjection to such “suffering unto perfection,” he, Jesus-Man finished His training” (so to speak) and the writer says that “He (then) became “the Author of eternal salvation.”
That Greek word for author is Au-Tee-EE-OS and it means “the causer,” “the giver,” or “the source” of something – in this case, of age abiding salvation.
It’s the only time the word is used in the New Testament but from what I can tell it says that through His obedience, He is the cause, the giver, and/or the source,” of every salvivic experience.
There is NO other way or road or means than by and through Him.
But we would be remiss if we did not take the time to consider the whole passage, which says:
9 And being made perfect, He became the author of age-enduring salvation “unto all them that obey him.”
(ut-oh)
He became the giver and source of age-abiding salvation to all that obey Him?
Obedience?
What does this mean?
Do you obey Christ?
Obedience, like pregnancy, either is or its not. We either are or we’re not.
Are you?
I’m not.
Notice that the passage does not say that He became the author of salvation to all who try to obey Him.
The passage says that “He became the author of eternal salvation UNTO ALL THEM THAT OBEY HIM” so the question must be asked:
Do we obey Him?
Do I obey Him?
Do you obey Him?
And if we don’t perfectly – since we either do obey or we don’t – then do we receive salvation if we fail?
(beat)
This passage, and our understanding of it, is a world rocker in my opinion. It is used for every religious stance known to Christianity.
I am frankly amazed at the divergence of interpretations of this last line. In consulted a number of commentaries but gleaned some of the more astounding.
Proponnets of Big Grace pretty much act like the line doesn’t even exist. But on the other end of the spectrum holiness folks use it as a proof text to show the Good news is not so good after all!
Of this line John Wesley says – ready for this – that those who are saved “do His whole and complete will.”
Is it possible?
The People’s New Testament says:
“He does not save those who are in disobedience.”
Aren’t we all in some way or another?
Good Old Adam Clarke says:
“That “obedience to Christ” is equally necessary to salvation as with “believing on him.” It is not merely believers, but obedient believers, that shall be finally saved. Therefore,” He concludes, “this text is an absolute, unimpeachable evidence, that it is not the imputed obedience of Christ that saves any man.”
Whoa. I mean, whadda we do with explanations like this? Really?
It would be SOOO easy to reburden people with the need to attain perfection using verses like this – and unfortunately many explanations of these verses – even by the best of them – are horrible.
What to do?
Well, let’s first start with the Greek. There are a few words that have to do with what we translate into “obey,” “obeyed,” and or “obedience” in the New Testament. Two are
Ginomai and hoo-apa-kuo.
They can mean anything from obey to “listen””follow Him, be “open to Him” and/or “open to hearing Him,” and/or to “do His will.”
I would suggest that the line “obey Him” is proper, but more in the sense of being willing to hear and follow Him rather than perfection as perfection in ourselves is NOT possible.
In other words He did NOT (and does NOT) only save those who perfectly comply (as the English word “obey” tends to imply) . . .
. . . . If this was the case (as some of these guys intimate) then the Good News is just not god news at all – just religious demands pushing toward holiness).
I would suggest another passage (which uses the same Greek term WHOO-APA-KUO for the English “obey”) will help explain the meaning best:
It’s in Romans 6:17 where Paul writes:
“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”
Open to His commands, willing to hear Him and His guidance because when obedience begins from the heart it will work its way to the hands.
The second thing we have to ask (in light of what this line seems to intimate) is what has the Lord Jesus Christ commanded?
Again, coming from the LDS experience, “the Savior would have each of us pay 100% tithing, obey the Sabbath, attend our weekly services, be temple worthy and fulfill our obligations for the dead . . . hold family home evening, and on and on and on.
In light of the Lord saying:
“My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” these obligations sound more like they came from the minds of Men more than King Jesus.
In John 13:34 He made His demands plain:
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
Like everything else in the Christian walk, this (or His) New Commandment is virtually impossible, without Him being involved and leading the way.
Hence, He and His will must reign.
Not ours.
And this can be insufferable.
When met, we love God and Man more than self, and His commandment is attained – every time.
See the connection after going around full circle?
“We believe Him. And we are commanded to obey Him. He commanded us to love. We cannot love without submitting our will to Him. In submission, we love, and are obedient!”
This is how love overcomes all.
Listen to how Paul puts it for us in Colossians 3 (beginning at verse 12).
He presents a whole lot of apparent “things” we should do as Christians – a whole laundry list which reading them makes us pause and wonder how. But the answer is there if we look.
He says:
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.”
What does this look like? Self-suffering.
How? Humble submission to Him and His will?
When? Whenever our will desires to reign (over people or situations or problems) in ways that would be manifestly different that from when His will is done.
Why? Because it is the best definition of love around – submitting our best interests for the best interests of God – who is love.
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